


Caught Speechless

by Accestii



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accestii/pseuds/Accestii
Summary: When his attention-grabbing voice didn’t come out of his mouth, Bokuto didn’t know what to do. How in the world did this happen? Out of the many people that he had met, no one had managed to render him speechless. Who WAS this boy?





	Caught Speechless

 

For his entire life, Bokuto Koutarou would not stop talking. Others thought it was one of the most unusual things that they had ever seen. He never seemed to know when to speak his mind. To those who knew these things as second nature, Bokuto was an alien, a person unknowing of things around him.

For Bokuto, however, there was nothing unusual about how often he spoke. Why not talk as much as possible? If you didn’t mutter a single word, no one would know how you were feeling.

So that was the mindset Bokuto lived off of for 17 years.

It was the perfect machine, that mindset. It worked fine and got Bokuto exactly where he wanted to be, a star ace at an exceptional school. It wasn’t pretty, keep in mind, but it worked. Nothing about his mindset was going to change for a long time.

But when you throw a wrench at a machine, no matter how perfect it is, something will happen. A game thrower. A glitch. No matter what you do, something was going to go wrong

And that was exactly what Akaashi Keiji was.

A game thrower.

 

“I am Akaashi Keiji, from Mori Middle School. I played setter. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

_A setter! A brand new setter! Hopefully this junior would toss to me more than my seniors._

Bokuto opened his mouth to tell his teammate his thoughts, especially how awesome it was to get a new setter.

But nothing came out.

It’s not like he wasn’t alright, or anything of the sort. In fact, Bokuto was feeling almost as well as he did while playing volleyball. It was something about the setter. The shorter, apathetic-looking boy with messy, black hair was stealing Bokuto’s voice and getting away with it.

For the first time ever, Bokuto Koutarou was caught speechless.

When his attention-grabbing voice didn’t come out of his mouth, Bokuto didn’t know what to do. How in the world did this happen? Out of the many people that he had met, no one had managed to render him speechless. Who WAS this boy?

The voice thief left Bokuto feeling slightly infuriated... but also a bit curious. After all of the first years had introduced themselves, Bokuto slipped past everyone to talk to the setter.

“Hey, uhh Akashi-kun,” Bokuto started. Looking up from cleaning the gym floor, the boy turned to stare with stormy gray eyes. He looked a little shocked to see a senior come talk to him, but Bokuto passed it off as a first year thing.

“...It’s Akaashi...” he began. Bokuto flushed from his mistake and spoke quickly as to not embarrass himself further.

“Could you help me practice spikes for just a little bit?” Even then, Bokuto knew that his words sounded a bit sheepish. He had messed up Akaashi’s name (and probably scared the living daylights out of him too) and now demanded him to toss to Bokuto. _Hopefully this isn’t too much for a first year,_ Bokuto thought, _maybe I should apologi-_

“Sure.” Akaashi began to walk off, mop still in hand, to pull the cart of volleyballs over and set up the net. Bokuto stared in wonder at Akaashi as he began to prepare for throwing. All at once, he began to notice a lot of small things about his junior that pulled his heartstrings more than he would like to admit. Akaashi’s wavy, dark hair. The way he turned his head slightly whenever he talked to someone. The sparkles in the storms of his eyes. His openness to Bokuto when he approached him.

_What an extraordinary guy._

Like anyone else would do, Bokuto stood and stared at the guy in front of him. Akaashi Keiji was close to perfection. Once again, Bokuto has been caught speechless. He should be angry, but for some reason, Bokuto didn’t feel anything of the sort. Why did a person he had barely known for an hour have such an effect on him? Why was someone he barely knew messing with his head? Why did he feel the need to get to know him better?

Such thoughts kept swirling through his mind until the setter himself walked up to Bokuto and gave him a slight nudge. Akaashi offered a slight smile and muttered, “Bokuto-san, are you still there? You looked like you saw a star.” He looked curiously at Bokuto as he snapped into attention and realized what he was supposed to be doing.

“Practice! Right, let me get warmed up a bit...” Bokuto threw his jacket into the corner of the gymnasium and started to stretch. Akaashi, who had warmed up while Bokuto was busy daydreaming, stood beside him and watched.

“Bokuto-san, what kind of shots will you be practicing?” Bokuto looked up at Akaashi and gave a wide smile.

“It’s a surprise, Akashi-kun.” Bokuto flashed a toothy grin as he turned away to prepare to spike, oblivious to Akaashi’s annoyed mutter of “it’s Akaashi...”

Sighing to clear his head, Bokuto yelled at Akaashi to toss to him. Breathing a sigh of his own, Akaashi tossed the ball up and set to Bokuto.

And what a set it was. Although it was a single toss that lasted little more than a second, Bokuto could tell that it was full of care and attention. And it was perfect, not a hint of drifting to be seen.

_Extraordinary._

It was so perfect that it almost distracted Bokuto from what he was trying to do. At the last minute, he composed himself and prepared to do a line shot.

The slam of the ball against the floor was the second most satisfying sound at that moment. The first was Akaashi’s quiet gasp as he realized that Bokuto had hit a cross instead of a line. It was only for a moment, and had Bokuto not been listening, he would have missed it. But oh, he was glad he didn’t.

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Bokuto shouted in triumph. He stole a glance at Akaashi and cocked his head slightly. “Wasn’t that amazing, Akaashi? I bet you thought I was going to hit a line shot until the very end!”

“It was pretty cool.” Akaashi’s almost deadpan expression contradicted every word in that sentence, but Bokuto took that sentence to heart. He stared into the setter’s eyes and took a deep breath.

“Toss to me again, Akaashi!”

 

A little over an hour had passed since Bokuto had made his first cross shot in front of Akaashi. The latter was already feeling the effects of the practice, having to stop to breathe after setting for so long. Bokuto, on the other hand, felt like he had more energy than he began with, but stopped to let Akaashi rest.

What a practice it was! Bokuto never felt that much energy brew inside him before, and it felt amazing. Other people on the team could only set to him for so long before running away to do something else. Bokuto could see Akaashi pushing himself to his limit, stirring questions why he would do so for someone he had just met. Everything aside, it was amazing that someone would do this for him. For the alien kid. For the misfit speaker. For Bokuto.

_Nothing short of extraordinary._

He had to thank him. But how? Akaashi never seemed much for anything but volleyball. Volleyball... Bokuto covered his mouth to prevent himself from spilling what he was going to say. Spotting Akaashi on the bench, Bokuto dashed towards him and let his smile split his face in two.

“AKAASHI!” Bokuto had started jumping up and down in anticipation of what he was going to say next. Akaashi hadn’t even locked eyes with him for a second when Bokuto’s excitement skyrocketed through the roof.

“Your tosses are the best!”

“Ah, sure.”

Akaashi’s unmotivated voice would have made anyone else think that he wasn’t happy to hear it. But Bokuto could see that he had set something off in the setter. The sparkles in his eyes had seemed to multiply exponentially, and Bokuto could swear that the corners of his mouth had turned into a smile. Bokuto could almost feel his heart being pulled at the seams seeing this unfold in front of him. He had made someone else happy, so why did he feel like he still had something left to tell him? Why did he feel thoroughly unsatisfied when Akaashi stood up and started to walk away? Why...

Of course.

The reason was as clear as day. The reason why Akaashi out of all people made Bokuto so happy, the reason why Akaashi out of all people stole Bokuto’s voice, the reason why Akaashi out of all people felt so extraordinary to Bokuto,

was because he liked him.

At that moment, Bokuto Koutarou made up his mind to tell the pretty setter that he did. Pushing his feet against the floor, Bokuto used whatever energy he had to catch up to Akaashi. Stopping just in time to prevent himself from tackling the latter, Bokuto took a small breath and looked at Akaashi in the eyes.

“My little disciple, I forgot to tell you something!” Akaashi said nothing, allowing Bokuto to continue building up courage to speak.

“I like you!”

Both of them would say later that time seemed to slow down when Bokuto said those three words. The ace didn’t seem to care, and began to list off the reasons why he did. Despite the pressure, Akaashi did not betray what he was feeling until Bokuto had finished his speech.

“Bokuto, I am not your disciple.” Akaashi turned away from Bokuto’s gaze. Bokuto himself felt his smile waver in the slightest, and was about to speak when Akaashi spoke again.

“But I do like you, too.”

Bokuto couldn’t help himself but laugh. Laugh where words couldn’t fill in for him. Wrapping his arms around Akaashi, Bokuto let himself laugh until he couldn’t laugh anymore.

Because he was caught speechless.

And for once, he was perfectly fine with it.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to take a fun spin on chapter 331 of Haikyuu!! I hope you enjoyed reading it!


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